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Khaki is a color that became a pair of pants. This guide covers where the word and the uniform came from, how the military trouser became a wardrobe staple, and how khakis differ from chinos.
Khaki Pants or Khakis
Khaki is a color that is visualized as a light shade of yellow-brown. In Western fashion, it is a standard color for smart casual dress trousers for civilians, which are also often called khakis.
Khaki is a loanword incorporated from Hindustani (meaning "soil-colored") and is originally derived from the Persian (Khâk, literally meaning "soil"), which came to English from British India via the British Indian Army. A khaki uniform is often referred to as khakis.
The type of pant known as "khakis", which became popular following World War II, were initially military-issue khaki twill used in uniforms and were invariably khaki in color. Today, the term can refer to the fabric and style of trousers based on this older model, also called "chinos", rather than their color. The term chinos pants and khaki pants are often used interchangeably but they do have differences. Both are made from twill fabric, but the stitching when sewing the pants and the fabric weight may differ.
Khaki may have originated for battle but is popular for the love of fashion as well:
Khaki has been used by many armies around the world for uniforms, including camouflage. It has been used as a color name in English since 1848 when it was first introduced as a military uniform, and was called both drab and khaki. Khaki being a translation of the English drab light-brown color.
The United States Army adopted khaki during the Spanish–American War (1898). The United States Navy and United States Marine Corps followed suit.
When khaki was adopted for the continental British Service Dress in 1902, the shade chosen had a clearly darker and more green hue. This color was adopted with minor variations by all the British Empire Armies and the US expeditionary force of World War I, in the latter under the name olive drab. This shade of brown-green remained in use by many countries throughout the two World Wars. Khaki was devised to protect soldiers against the dangers of the industrialized battlefield, where the traditional bright colors and elaborate costumes made them vulnerable to attack. A response to surveillance technologies and smokeless guns, khaki could camouflage soldiers in the field of battle.
Although the khaki color and pant style is often used in battle it is also utilized for the love of fashion. The color and pant style is a stable in many wardrobes. The garment is worn by men, women, and children. This pant is often worn by most age groups as well. Khaki pants are possibly less formal than chinos but can be worn for many various occasions.
You may want to also learn about capri pants and cargo pants.
Learn more about different types of pants.
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The civilian khaki pant kept the military pattern's virtues and dropped its purpose. The twill weave is hard-wearing and comfortable, the soil-colored shade hides the marks of a working day, and the cut — a straight, flat-fronted trouser — sits at the smart end of casual, which is why khakis became the standard smart casual dress trouser for civilians and a staple worn by men, women and children across most age groups. They are possibly less formal than chinos, the closely related trouser they are so often confused with: both are twill, but the stitching and the fabric weight may differ, and in practice chinos are usually the dressier finish of the same idea.
That middle formality is the khaki's usefulness. It pairs with shirts and blazers for offices that stop short of suits, with knitwear and casual shirts outside work, and it travels well because the color combines with nearly everything above it. The garment's history explains its neutrality: a uniform color devised so soldiers would blend into the field became, in civilian life, a background color that lets the rest of an outfit do the talking. Few garments in this guide have crossed from battlefield to boardroom-casual as completely.
Khaki is a light shade of yellow-brown, a loanword from Hindustani meaning soil-colored, originally derived from the Persian word for soil, which came to English from British India via the British Indian Army; it has been used as a color name in English since 1848, when it was introduced as a military uniform color.
The pants known as khakis became popular following World War II and were initially military-issue khaki twill uniforms; khaki was adopted by the United States Army during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and for British Service Dress in 1902, because the drab color camouflaged soldiers in the field.
The terms are often used interchangeably, but they do have differences: both are made from twill fabric, yet the stitching used in sewing the pants and the fabric weight may differ, and khakis are possibly less formal than chinos while serving many of the same occasions.